Cooking Methods

Camp cooking can be experienced in many different ways. You can make it quick and simple or you can plan it as one of your activities for the day. Many enjoy the process of camp meal preparation and experiment with various methods. But the one thing everyone agrees with, is that food cooked at camp always taste good. Below is an outline of some of the various cooking methods used in the outdoors.

Camp Stoves

Propane or white gas (2) burner stoves – most commonly used

Butane (1) burner backpack stoves – very lightweight

Kerosene stoves – efficient and inexpensive fuel

CAUTION: Do not operate stove or store fuel containers around another heat source such as a campfire. Only operate the stove in open, well ventilated areas. Never use the stove in a tent or a confined area.

Charcoal

Used in BBQ grill or fire ring

Provides consistent heat distribution

Use a fire starter to start charcoal or to reduce heating time use a charcoal tower or large can with both ends removed and holes punched around the bottom. Crumble paper in bottom and place charcoal on top. Tilt can slightly and light paper with a match. Using pot holders, remove can when coals are ready and spread out for larger cooking surface.

One piece of charcoal equals 40 degrees of temperature

Charcoal will be gray-white in daylight and red at night when ready for use

Wood Fires

For successful cooking, have the right kind of fire for the type of cooking you plan on doing. Example – for boiling use a quick flame, for stewing use a low flame, for frying or broiling use a bed of glowing coals.

Buddy Burner

Dutch Oven

Place three times as many charcoal pieces on the lid as under the oven

Always cook with lid on

Must be seasoned with oil before use

Cover outside of oven with foil for easy clean-up

Foil Cooking

Cook on bed a glowing coals

Use heavy duty aluminum foil

Foil should be large enough to wrap around food and fold all edges securely for a tight seal. Leave some space for expansion when you wrap your raw foods. You must keep steam and juices inside package.

On heavy duty foil, place meat, potatoes, vegetables, seasoning etc, add a cream soup on top, fold up foil and secure ends, place over coals, turn and rotate often until fully cooked.

Our Girl Scout Troop of 30 are going camping for the first time.
We are in a burn ban(Texas). Need some creative cooking meals. We can use the Coleman Stoves. Someone said something about Solar Cooking. HELP.

Thanks for all the great stuff on this website. We took a few recipes and bought our first dutch oven, went camping using our new way of cooking, and we absolutely loved it. We cannot believe we have never tried dutch oven cooking before. We enjoyed the cherry dump cake, the beef strogonoff, and bisquits. Also we enjoyed the scavenger hunts that are listed here as well.

We use a cast iron griddle to cook our bisquits on. We cook them on our small BBQ that has a lid to cover them, but could use the dutch oven also, I think that is the way to go, so easy and fun.